First of all, may I offer my sincere condolences to the royal family following the death of Prince Philip. I mean it, man. He was someone’s father, someone’s grandfather, someone’s uncle and someone’s husband for 73 years. In pure human terms, there is only sadness. Set aside feelings about the very idea of having a monarchy and think about those who have lost someone they love. I’d say the same about pretty well any family in the world who lost a loved one.
Of course, there is media overkill. Every BBC channel is running the same rolling news programme, every BBC national radio station, with the exception of Radio 1, is broadcasting the same rolling news programme. Every major TV network, from the BBC through ITV and Channel 5, but not Channel Four, has ripped up today’s schedule. It’s wall-to-wall Philip today.
At least it’s not as mad as when Princess Diana died in 1997. All sport was postponed for the week after and shops closed on the day of her funeral. At least the football goes ahead this time, as befits a royal who actually didn’t like a fuss being made about him. I’d like to think that this time we allow the family to mourn in private.
Without trying to be disrespectful, could the BBC not have rolling coverage on, say, BBC 1, as well as on Radios 4 and Five Live? I know I can live without Uncle Funky Frank’s Friday Floor-fillers on Shaun Keaveny’s BBC 6 music show just for one day, but surely I should have been given the opportunity to listen to it? 6 Music is known as a “dedicated alternative music station”, not a news station. Radio 3 plays mainly classical music. Radio 2, easy listening. Do you see the theme? They are, by and large, music stations. I can dip in and out of the rolling news coverage elsewhere if I want to, can’t I?
When does a broadcaster decide to step back from rolling coverage because you know that the actual story isn’t going to change. There will not be a major breaking news story informing us that Philip is still dead, so what we are getting is archive footage, programmes made weeks, maybe even years ago, in anticipation of his death, interviews and, frankly, padding. A minority of the British public will want to watch this stuff for the rest of the evening and that should be possible but the majority will want to watch something else. I would still like to watch Graham Norton tonight, not the same potted history the BBC has been running all day. But I know I won’t be able to.
Rest in peace, Duke. You did a lot of good things in your life and you were a war hero, too. We should be grateful for that and we should acknowledge, whatever our feelings on royalty, that yours was a life of public service. And once the dust settles, I hope the family can be accorded privacy in their hour of despair. Maybe the royals are ours, but their grief shouldn’t be.
